You shall
not oppress a stranger, for you know the feelings of the stranger,
having yourselves been strangers in the land of Egypt. Exodus (23:9)
“To me, that commandment is not
some spiritual anachronism, but an ongoing moral prescription for
the whole Jewish people.
I believe the reason why Jews throughout
the world repeat the Exodus story at every seder,
and thank God for our liberation from Egypt in so many prayers throughout
the year, is that liberation is the core event of Jewish history.
It is the experience that defines us as a people. It tells
us who we are and what we are supposed to do.
There is a Third World here in America. There
is an Egypt right
here in the middle of our Canaan.
Whatever our personal goals and wherever our promised land takes
us, we can commit ourselves to choose just one piece from the jagged
puzzle of human misery and try to make it better. We can join advocacy
groups and work together to combat hate and promote pluralism. We
can organize, fund-raise, lobby, volunteer our time, speak out, fight
for fairer allocation of public resources, give our own money, work
in a soup kitchen, demonstrate - - yes, even march
together once again.
The mandate is deceptively simple. Imitateo Deo.
Imitate what God did for us and do it for others. How do we imitate
God? By relieving suffering. By helping to free
the oppressed. By undertaking the ritual
of empathy and the search for justice as commitments of our own. Thus
does the theology of hope inspire the politics of social change.”
-
Letty Cottin Pogrebin
Excerpted from, Deborah, Golda
and Me
